Co-written by: Kait Stafki

How wonderful is it to live in a world run by individual minds that have the freedom to express their unique opinions in the form of any type of media? It’s honestly beautiful, the way we are able to organize words into an essay that half of the internet can relate to in one way or another.

Odyssey was created to encourage this type of creativity in a way that rewards the creator as much as it seems to reward the reader's imagination. At the same time, it gives creators an equal opportunity to share ideas that mean the most to them without the unfair advantages others may have if they’re popular on social media.

“The monopoly on minds is over. Odyssey democratizes content, giving people the opportunity to share what’s most important to them and their communities, enriching everyone with broader, more honest perspectives on topics they care about.” –Odyssey

Many people don't understand how being a Content Creator for Odyssey works. The nitty gritty truth is that we can get an incentive for the engagement of our piece, or how many times our articles are viewed and shared. There's a lot of work that goes into sharing your voice with the world. So when it was uncovered by fellow Odyssey Creator Kait Stafki that my content had been screenshotted and posted on Twitter, I was fuming. Not only had someone cost me views, and shares (aka the moolah) but someone took my very personal emotions, and a piece that was extremely hard to write and passed it off as their own personal thoughts and ideas.

I thought back to every paper I'd ever written in school, every code of conduct I'd been forced to read and acknowledge, and I realized how important citations are. Because not only did someone else take the time to write something, but they took the time to research, fact check, and make sure their ideas are being presented in the most influential and helpful way possible. There is no feeling better than someone telling you something you wrote helped them. Possessing the ability to put your thoughts, ideas and feelings into words that many people couldn't and helped them express themselves is the most empowering feeling. You made a difference to someone and your words made them feel like they had an ally with whatever they were facing, despite how hard it was to write those words. This feeling getting ripped away from you as someone else passes your experiences off as their own feels like a violation.

Odyssey Creators are faced with the constant struggle of writing something that people will relate to and want to share with their friends on social media. That’s why we constantly pimp our articles on so many different social media platforms. If someone messages us and says they really liked or connected with an article we encourage them to share it, we encourage all the people who comment on it to share it, and we have a few close friends who share everything we write just in support and solidarity of our creativity.

While a piece of this is the purely selfish pride of wanting your work to be seen by as many people as possible (and have all of your aunts and uncles tell you how smart and well written you are), another piece of this is the validation that you receive when people you DON’T know say that they enjoyed your piece.

And the final piece of this pie is the knowledge that as your views rack up so does your monetary incentive. While some may think taking content that’s posted on social media and not crediting or linking the source it came from isn’t a big deal, what they don’t realize is that doing that is not just plagiarism, but it’s also preventing someone, somewhere from receiving credit for their work. And many times that accreditation is how their productivity is quantified. Which means you’ve not only stolen their thoughts, ideas, and words, you’ve prevented them from benefitting from them.

We don’t write for Odyssey for the money. Odyssey is the best creative outlet I could have ever stumbled across, and it prevents my Facebook friends from being accosted by my lengthy statuses and rants (and telling me I need a diary). Odyssey helps me put things into words and share feelings or opinions without having to worry about the confrontation or reactions (or being ignored) that could arise from saying these things to someone directly. Odyssey allows me to bring visual order to cerebral chaos.

That being said, it’s important to understand the absolute wrongness of plagiarism. It truly affects the author, and many don’t seem to understand the consequences of it. Though it doesn’t affect you (that’s if you don’t get caught), it takes a very negative toll on the creator. Publishing the literary writings (or work) and not giving them the correct citations, credit or even publishing it as one’s own is the literal definition of plagiarism.

As discussed above, it is not only morally wrong, but against the law. Copyright infringement and plagiarism is a misdemeanor of the second degree, which means a conviction can result in a jail term of up to 60 days and a fine of up to $500 (s. 775.082). Yup. We’re talking about a criminal record here.

So moral of the story, don’t even think about it. Don’t you dare to highlight that article, and keep your fingers away from copy and paste. If you see the writings of someone else, don’t be afraid to call them out and tell the author!